The Rig 3: Eye of the Hurricane (6 page)

She shot up and bolted into the sitting room, only noticing her dizziness again when she stood in front of the three others. They, too, had been shaken by the crash and Dave had jumped to his feet to check the bedroom.

“You alright?” Dave asked her worriedly.

Joy nodded and sat down. Her head was throbbing again, but it was bearable now. She looked at the three faces. “I assume you guys came up with a plan?”

Wes nodded. “We need to take care of those FBI guys and then we'll take the sub out of here. It should be good for a trip to the mainland.”

Sheila laid a hand on Wes' wrist and squeezed. She knew the plan, but it still scared her. Joy just nodded slowly. She could not nod more vigorously because of her head, but she could see no other way out of the predicament they found themselves in.

“Anyone else still alive in ‘The City’?” she asked.

Dave and Wes both shrugged. “There are people in the hospital and the staff are still finding people.” Dave answered her. “But I tried getting through to some people on their phones or intercoms and nobody answered. I doubt there's anyone who will be any use in taking care of those bastards.”

Joy nodded again and closed her eyes. “I'm not sure how much use I will be, but I'm helping.”

***

Garcia was the first to wake up. His head was throbbing. He felt the back of his head gingerly. No blood, but there was a nasty bruise where Joy had hit him with the pipe. He blinked and carefully found his feet. He balanced himself by holding on to the wall and blinked again. His vision was troubled, but cleared up with every second he stood on his feet. Moments later, he managed to take a step and he took his hand off the wall. He checked the holster at his waist and then the one at his ankle. He looked around, but his guns were gone.

He walked into the dock and squatted down by his colleague. He placed his fingers on his neck and checked his pulse. It was normal. Garcia sat himself down on one of the crates and rested his head in his hands. Smith would be alright, but this mission was turning into a nightmare. The only thing they had had to do was make sure their patsy, Akhmed Hussain Abbasi, was cleared away so he could not betray them. All that they had been intended for was to be a safety net, but now the safety net had to be used. Even worse, the safety net had itself made things worse. He knew Smith had blabbed, and he knew they would now have to deal with those three people and the person who had knocked him down.

Smith groaned, but did not wake up. Garcia was glad for it. He did not want to deal with his colleague right now. His withdrawal symptoms had been bad, but since they had stopped – for reasons Garcia could guess only too well – he had gotten worse. He was out of control, and maybe he should end Smith here. It would not be like anyone would ask any questions of him, given the monumental failure of the mission. But he shook his head and dismissed it. He would not shy away from the actions required if it came to it, but for now he would put up with Smith. He could use his help hunting down the small group of souls they needed to eliminate. And if there was any killing to be done, he would prefer to leave that to Smith.

He figured the four who had been here would have fled from the area and taken refuge somewhere in ‘The City’. He tried to recall the maps of the rig, trying to find a place they would hide out. There was no place that sprang to mind. He figured for a moment on them going back to their own apartments. He would have to find out who they were and where they resided. Then he threw out the idea. They would not be that stupid. Smith groaned again, waking Garcia from his thoughts.

Chapter Eleven

Elly was again dressed to the nines. She felt dirty doing it, but she needed to wheedle as much information from Senator Jacobs as she could. She had no idea how else she could find out the information she needed. Akhmed's life was obviously in danger, and his good name even more so. She had promised Helen she would find out what was happening, and she was determined to keep that promise.

The senator had sent a limousine to pick her up from her place and she got into it with some sense of trepidation. She had researched Senator Adam Jacobs earlier and found some news files that did not particularly put her at ease. For one, the man seemed to have been charged with rape and sexual assault several times. How the hell had he kept his office for so long? He always got off, of course, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. And Elly knew she was pretty much inviting his attentions. There was no one to help her out if things went tits-up.

Some of the stories had been pretty awful and she could barely believe them to be true. She figured some of it might have been his political enemies trying to destroy him by urging the victims to make it into something worse than it was, but really, there was no need if the stories even had a core of truth.

One of the victims had testified in court that Jacobs had abducted her and locked her in his apartment before letting his butler tie her up and rape her repeatedly. Another victim had been a former secretary whom he had assaulted and raped as she worked overtime in the office. There were another five charges laid against him from secretaries, members of the press and several girls in nightclubs.

Elly tugged at the hem of her very short dress, trying to hide the top of her stockings. The dress barely covered them when she stood, but they were very much on show as she sat down. She had worn her best lingerie and her breasts were popping out of her dress. She did not usually wear clothes like this unless to seduce a boyfriend in the bedroom, and never outside of the house, but current priorities must prevail. She needed to get through to Jacobs.

***

Senator Jacobs was waiting at one of San Diego’s top restaurants. He felt good being back in this city. And the prospect of spending time with the lovely press chick he had seen was exciting him more than anything had in a long time. He had not even touched a drop of drink since the afternoon in anticipation. He knew it would be very hard for him to put the moves on her if he got drunk. And if he could not seduce her, he would have to resort to other means to slake his lusts. Means he preferred not to use, given the problems it had gotten him into in the past.

He had sent his town car for the press bird. Elly, he thought she was called. He had seen her briefly on the television, reporting from a chopper on the fire at ‘The City’. She looked positively ditzy there. A bit like the Danish prime minister, he thought. He remembered seeing a bit of YouTube video of the selfie woman going up to Sarah Jessica Parker in Oslo, declaring herself to be the Danish prime minister in the happiest, dizziest manner he had ever seen. This press chick was on the same level, he figured. And she seemed quite keen as well.

The town car pulled up outside the restaurant and the driver rushed to open the door. Jacobs almost fainted on the spot as the woman got out. She was dressed like a porn star. The semi he had been sporting as he’d absent-mindedly thought about her immediately sprang to full attention. His jaw dropped. He had seen her earlier and thought she dressed to a certain standard he liked in women, but this was something come out of his dreams.

Elly felt even more self-conscious when she got out of the town car. She tried to maintain as much of her dignity as she could getting out, keeping her knees together and trying to stop her dress riding up as she slid out of the seat. She was desperate to keep her upper body as straight as possible, knowing her breasts would flop out of the small dress if she did not.

She managed to stand on her high stilettos with some amount of grace and she looked around. Then she saw the senator and remembered her act. She waved and smiled the prettiest smile she could muster up. She saw instantly the effect she was having on the douche bag. The front of his trousers was bulging a bit. Her false smile turned to a genuine one when she realized the man must have a rather small member.

She stepped up to him and gave him a spontaneous kiss on the cheek. As she did, she felt his hand on her bottom. She resisted the urge to slap his hand away and just leaned against him. She felt his small erection press against her thigh and repressed a shudder. And suddenly she wished men – and especially men in power – were not such sleaze bags. She hoped she would one day find a man who would actually like her with some clothes on. But for now, it was back to business.

Chapter Twelve

Smith woke up with a groan. He immediately heard the raging storm outside the doors of the dock. He looked over to the submarine and saw Garcia sitting in front of it. His hand went to the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulled out the bag of white powder and grabbed a little scoop from his pocket as he sat up. He picked up some of the white powder with the scoop and brought it up to his nose.

Garcia coughed discreetly. It was a discreet but potent noise.  Smith looked up and saw the angry look on his colleague's face. He stopped short of snorting up the powder and looked up at him quizzically. “What?”

“You absolute fuckwit,” Garcia said calmly.

As so often, the calmness in his voice was a surer measure of anger than a voicing of passion. He was the opposite of Smith in many ways, but in that, the difference between them was more than obvious.

Smith wanted to give an angry retort, but he saw Garcia's hand twitch towards a harpoon gun next to him on the crate. He saw the look in Garcia's eyes and knew then Garcia would not hesitate to use it on him. “Calm down...” Smith said eventually. “What's gotten into you?”

“You know perfectly well what's gotten into me,” Garcia said in the same chillingly calm voice.

“No, I don't!” Smith protested.

“The drugs, the women and the attitude is one thing.” Garcia's eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth twitched. He still sounded eerily calm, but his face was a rictus of anger. “You jeopardizing not only our mission, but the agency and above all, our lives, is not something I can live with any longer.”

Smith said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He knew he should say he would change things and would stop the liberal use of hookers and blow, but he knew Garcia would not believe him now and would quicker lodge that harpoon in his body than let him make the promise.

“I'm going back to the security rooms to try and find them on the monitors,” Garcia said after several moments of deadly silence. He picked up the harpoon gun and watched Smith recoil. “Pull yourself together,” Garcia snarled at him. He stood and walked up the stairs, making his way back to the screens he had left earlier.

Smith was fuming. He did not like Garcia's judging ways. He knew Garcia was right as well, but he did not need the bastard to tell him that. He had lucked out on a drug test earlier and he carried the scoop for his blow for a reason. He could not carry razor blades or let a finger nail grow as a scoop lest the FBI find out. He was already under scrutiny for the routine visits of call girls, so the last thing he needed was them finding out about his drug habit.

Now he would have to make sure Garcia did not talk to their superiors. Not that he thought Garcia would. Given his monumental fuck up, he reckoned Garcia might actually get rid of him here and now instead. The rig was destined for the scrap yard anyway, most likely it would tilt and sink, and nobody would be able to find him if Garcia did use the harpoon gun on him.

***

Garcia opened every drawer in the camera room. The last drawer finally yielded what he was looking for. There was a locked box, but with the picklock he carried in his pocket, it only took a minute to open the box. Inside were two Walther PPK's and ample ammunition. He took both the guns out and put them in the holsters he carried. The holsters were not made for those guns, but they fit well enough.

He buttoned his jacket and brushed over it. He made sure the gun did not show under it. He did the same with the gun he hid in the ankle holster. He kept the harpoon gun with him. It would be useful if Smith, or indeed the prey they were hunting, did not know he was carrying a gun again.

He sat down again, the harpoon gun in his lap. He reached for the keyboard, using the keys to flip through all the cameras he could see. He smiled. He liked this work for some reason. The bone dry work of going through data and camera feeds, trying to establish a lead in a case, or like now, in surveillance.

Chapter Thirteen

The meteorologist at San Clemente was surprised to see Commander Lovell enter his office. It was unusual to see the commanders from the base at all. Commander Lovell was a man who trusted his intuition when it came to storms and his intuition had proven right more often than the models of the meteorologist.

“How long do your models think this damned storm will last?” Lovell wasted no time with pleasantries.

“And good evening to you, Commander.”

“Lieutenant Roberts.” Commander Lovell acknowledged him.

“Why the question?”

“Because I want to be out there again as soon as possible.” Lovell smiled brightly. “But as it is, I don't want to risk my cutter out there.”

“You'll be staying put at least another day, as far as I can see.” Roberts answered him without even looking at the screens on his desk.